Off the needles: Socks from Dana's Handspun

Hello from Tennessee! These socks have been done for a while, but since our wireless router is in a box on a truck somewhere between Ithaca and Oak Ridge, I haven't posted about them yet.

Details:
Yarn: Dana's handspun, from Malabrigo Nube, colorway "Diana"
Pattern: Texture pattern from Hermione's Everyday Socks, plugged into my standard sock recipe (toe-up, short-row toe, short-row heel, 1x1 twisted rib cuff until I run out of yarn)
Needles: US No.1 DPNs, two sets of four needles each

Firsts for this project include German short rows and doing my socks two-at-a-time on two sets of DPNs (rather than a single long circular, Magic Loop style).

German short rows are my new favorite way to do short rows --  they are very quick and simple and look very clean when finished. I'll have to do a more detailed comparison in my sock heel study, coming soon!

DPN-style two-at-a-time was a big success as well. I learned Magic Loop two-at-a-time from Dana earlier this year, and I liked it a lot -- finally, I could actually make sock #2 the same as sock #1 -- but I was getting increasingly frustrated navigating the last few stitches before the fold on each sock, which seemed to get impossibly tight no matter what I did. So I decided to go back to DPNs, but keep the two-at-a-time format. Now I just switch back and forth from one sock to the other after a few rows or a pattern repeat.

The only problem I discovered is with the cast-on. I usually use Judy's Magic Cast-on and cast on the full number of foot stitches (58 here) over two needles, then immediately make a short-row toe over half the stitches before joining in the round for the foot. This works great when you can scoot those extra stitches-in-waiting onto the cable of a circular needle, but when they're stuck on an extremely rigid DPN right next to where you're working the toe, it's nearly impossible to maneuver. I ended up casting on over a DPN and a circular so I could slide those stitches onto the cable, but it would be nice to find a way to do the cast-on that doesn't require a matching circular needle. More experimentation is needed!

Also, these socks were done just in time for my sister-in-law to wear to Knoxville's Pride parade -- she needed some rainbows!

On (and Off) my Needles, June 2017

I've been posting a lot about my fiber adventures lately, and I realize it looks like I spend a lot of time adventuring and little time making. I'd like to rectify that by beginning a monthly post about what is on (and recently off) my needles (or drop spindle!).

Off My Needles, Alex the Mouse:

I've been doing my best to follow along with A Year of Techniques, presented by Mason-Dixon Knitting and A-C Knitwear. Every month a new knitting technique is introduced with a new project. May's technique was the pin-hole cast on with the Alex the Mouse by Ella Austin. I didn't get started until mid-May, and I completed my Alex in the first week of June. (There were a few times I had to frog due to color-work tension, and I lost count of the number of rows in the legs, so they were a little uneven and I frogged there too*), but I am so happy with how Alex turned out. June's Project is the Talmadge Cloche by Romi Hill, the technique is knitted edging (instead of casting off the 'traditional' way you do a decorative edge). It is late June and I have only now gotten all the goods together for the cloche, but I don't mind. I first want to get a few things off my needles before I start another project.

(*See below for a neat way to keep track of rows) 

I knit Alex in Coop Knits Socks Yeah ( I loved this sock yarn, great stitch definition and so soft, I would definitely purchase it again. It has a nice heather-y look to it).

The yarn I have for the Talmadge Cloche is a Madeline Tosh Sock in the Well Water colorway from my stash, it has been waiting for a good use and I know this is a perfect match! (Now I just got to find me some pretty buttons)...

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Works in Progress # 1, Always a sock:

I've mentioned before I knit while walking to campus (okay I knit while walking most anywhere), but in order to do so I have to have a 'brainless' knit to work on, enter stockinette stitch socks!!!! In other words I'm one of the many who commonly have socks on the needles. 

I have been wanting to knit socks with Zauberball Sock, by Skacel, since the first time I came across it! A month or so back I found it on sale  and jumped at the chance to purchase a skein. I purchased the 1564 colorway. For these socks I am doing a short row toe and after thought heel. I recently learned that after thought heels are great for keeping the stripy pattern consistent in self-striping yarn (with a heel flap and gusset self striping yarn may end up with a zig-zag around the heel and ankle). Between that and having never done and after thought heel before I thought 'why not'? 

My thoughts on short row toes (and maybe on the after thought heel when I get there, since i believe it is short row as well). This has been a lesson on how knitting in the round may result in a different gauge than flat knitting. This is mainly attributed to tension differences between knitting and purling. This is absolutely true for me, as evidenced by my loose toe bed and immediate (very noticeable) gauge change from the toe to the foot. I don't mind so much in this case being that they are socks, but I would like very much to figure out how to get a nicer/cleaner transition in the future.

One last comment on these socks, but applicable to any project where keeping track of rows is important. Freya, from one of my favourite video podcasts, Freya Spins, at one point mentioned a way she keeps track of rows with scrap yarn and a tapestry needle. I thought I'd try it and I love it! I've been counting every 5 rows and simply stitch the scrap yarn between knit stitches to mark my progress.

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Works in Progress # 2, Stole Print-o-the-wave by Eunny Jang:



So, this project has been 'on my needles' for quite some time now (It languished in the corner while Alex was being worked on, and ignored while I knitted a pair of socks from hand-dyed). Mostly I can blame this on my being a one project person up until recently, by recently I mean a week or two. I am so happy I have found my way to having multiple projects going at once, in large part because this beautiful print-o-the-wave stole by Eunny Jang, is finally being worked on again!!!

I can comfortable say I am about 65% of the way. I had a few challenges to overcome in the beginning that were fixed using a life-line and stitch markers. (I don't know if I'd ever attempt lace with out these techniques now). The body is made of two mirrored panels with a provisional cast on in between. The pattern is a pretty simple 12 row repeat, and 16 stitch repeat BUT it  definitely requires attention. So I turn on the telly or some you tube and knit away. After the body is complete there is a knitted edging to be done before finishing. 

I knit this stole using Juniper Moon Farm lace Yarn in the Findley colorway.

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On the Spindle, Home dyed colorway - 'Spring Highway':

I like to say 'Spring Highway" like Jack, from Will & Grace, does 'jazz hands'. I was returning home from a weekend visit with my parents, and it was a perfect NE spring day. That young green, and that spring yellow filling in whatever spaces it could find. The sky was that perfect sky blue with cotton ball white clouds. For some reason I thought to myself "I must create a colorway from this!!!!" So I did.

I am so proud of this colorway, not because it is beautiful (it's not), but because I imagined it, and I created it, and it really has turned out how I envisioned it (though the yarn bloomed more in the setting than I had expected). The initial intention was to make a pair of socks from this (I have grey reinforcing thread), and maybe I still will. For now I have one more skein to spin and then... we'll see!

Wool Washing (a.k.a. removing the poop)

The Crooked Creek Farm adventure was a couple of weeks ago, at which I got just over 2 pounds of gorgeous, grey, white, and black wool. My fiance is not too fond of the smell of sheep poo (I'll admit it's not my favorite either), so I had to get through the washing "quickly" (if within about 2 weeks counts as quickly, hah).

Dana and I did a test run just a couple of days after the adventure, to get started and figure out the kinks together. Overall, it went really well, and I'm excited to work with the result! We forgot to take pictures then, so I figured I'd show what I've been up to now.

The first step from raw wool to clean, gorgeous garment is to pick any gunk out of the wool (poop, second cuttings, leafy vegetal matter, etc.). Sitting in a tub listening to podcasts, or on Dana's front porch with beer and friends, and it can go by quickly! Also, much of the vegetal matter is removed in the carding and washing process, and the poop dissolves in the wash, so I wasn't too picky about picking out the gunk, just got the largest bits.

Next is the washing. For this, Walmart buckets and dollar store laundry bags are super helpful. I started filling the buckets with the hottest water my bath could run, and adding in a few generous squirts of dish soap for the first couple of washes. The water is added to the bucket each time before the wool is introduced, since agitating the wool increases the risk of felting it. Each rinse was left sitting for 20 minutes, and the rinses weren't done until the rinse water ran clear.

The laundry bags were removed from the rinse water, squeezed to remove water, rolled up in a towel to further dry, and lastly the wool was laid out to dry in a sunny window. Once dry, it's ready for carding, spinning, and knitting!

Just across the border

My friend Cathy and I have been fiber friends for... hmmm... going on 4 years now.  We sat across the hall from each other during one of my internships in undergrad. I was not yet a dedicated knitter (in fact I think I was trying my hand at tatting at the time). It was apparent she was, from tea cozies to shawls her work was 'on display', and being a crafter, I struck up conversation with her about her knitting, we've been friends ever since.

Cathy is about 15 years older than me, this is a large part why I love knitting so much (and anything fiber related) there are no barriers. They break down as soon as one see's a fellow crafter, it is the shared experience in making that is the only thing that matters. In fact it wasn't until recently we even addressed our age difference, and really it was more of a comment about how we never even notice it. All we know is that we knit and chat, and that is all that matters (and we chat about everything)!

Since getting to know each other I moved a few hours away (to attend graduate school). We were both glad that it is only a few hours, since that meant we could still meet up on occasion, go to yarn stores, grab a bite to eat, chat, and knit. A few months ago Cathy came to Ithaca to visit me and explore the finger lakes, at the end of that trip we agreed that I needed to return to Buffalo for a weekend and we could revisit some of the places we had already or been or, better yet, go explore some shops across the border in Canada.

One of the many wonderful things about Buffalo is that if you wanted, and it is not unusual, one could just pop over to Canada for a bite, or a bike ride, or to got to the beach (the Lake Erie shore in Canada is rather nice). Yes; you do need a passport, or enhanced license, and sometimes the lines at the border are long (though I've yet to encounter anything unbearable), but it is fun to think "I went to a different (cheaper) country for an afternoon". So with that exploratory nature in our back pockets we planned a visit that involved going to a couple shops in Canada and a stop off at Niagara-on-the-Lake for gelato.

Our first stop was Rose's Fine Yarn of Niagara in Fonthill, ON. What a fun and unique shop, and not just for their selection and variety of yarns. Walking in feels like walking into a curiosity shop, antiques, trinkets, souvenirs... it is easy to get distracted by a porcelain pie bird, or sterling serving tray in the main (entry) room. Quickly the proprietor gave us some direction pointing out the different rooms and what they hold: The acrylic room, the cotton and linen room, the Canadian yarn room, the room of notions and buttons, the sock yarn room, and the wool room.

I LOVED this shop! What an amazing variety, and not just in yarns, I saw 6x0 dpns here, think about that for a moment size 000000!

I also found a number of yarns I wanted, a really springy turkish wool/polyamide blend, it was so bouncy to the touch I just wanted to have it to squeeze, and Jawoll Aktion cotton stretch color. I learned about Jawoll watching the Dunklgrun podcast. It is a sock yarn that is a specially spun cotton wool blend. I love the idea of being able to knit socks using cotton, but cotton has no memory and gets really stiff. This blend is suppose to 'fix' that. I am super excited to give it a turn (as soon as I finish everything that is currently on my needles)!

We then made a stop at Bee Sew Busy on our way to Niagara-on-the-Lake. This shop is a sewing and yarn boutique, everywhere you look there is eye candy in terms of prints and colors. The yarn selection was not as plentiful or varied as I had hoped, but it was a pleasure to wander through and imagine all the sewing projects I could dream of doing (and I do have a few I hope to get to someday). I was able to find the knitters pride needles I had been looking for here (3mm, US 2.5), and was happy to make a purchase and support a local yarn shop (LYS), especially one so pleasant.

(the days plunder)

Our final stop, before heading back to Buffalo was Niagara-on-the-Lake for gelato and a wander about town. I love Niagara-on-the-Lake, this was not my first time here (it being only 45 minutes from Buffalo, but a world away). The Niagara Peninsula is Canada's wine country, and therefore dotted with vineyards and busy with tourists. While I've yet to indulge in any wines from this region or tour the vineyards I have come to Niagara-on-the-Lake for the Shaw festival.

(photo by ihs Holiday Ads:
https://s.iha.com/0018830906/Niagara-on-the-lake)

The Shaw Festival is a theater festival that runs from April to October of every year. With three theaters and ~13 plays (and very affordable price options). We had come for our anniversary one year, spent the day wandering about town (a very picturesque town) had a bite to eat at one of the many options for dinner, got an "obligatory" gelato at Nina Gelateria and Pastry Shop (WOW!). We ended that day at an amazing performance of The Philadelphia Story. I cannot recommend a trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake enough! (an added bonus is it is a short, and picturesque drive down the Niagara River to Niagara Falls, ON).

Needless to say, when Cathy and I made it back to Buffalo we were ready to call it a day.  A great, wonderful, fun day spent with a dear friend. (Thank you Cathy!)

Central New York Fiber Festival 2017

The Annual Central New York Fiber Festival, hosted by Central New York Fiber Artists and Producers, was this past weekend in Bouckville, NY (about 1 1/2 hrs NE of Ithaca NY). Since the weather was going to be in our favor we, my husband Jeremy and I, decided to make a weekend out of it and went camping the night before at Charles E. Baker State Park (just 1/2 hour away from the fiber festival) with our friends Nilay, Zach, Ela, and Sandra.

This is where  the adventure began: We didn't get on the road until much later than we had anticipated (arriving at the campsite at 9pm), the last 4 miles to the camp site was a rutted gravel/dirt road, and then minutes after arriving Ela got bit by a dog. ugh... While the rest of the crew set up camp in the dark, Ela and I drove back down the rutted gravel/dirt road to the nearest hospital about 1/2 hr away. While in the waiting room my husband messaged me saying he couldn't find our tent poles and I immediately started wondering what else could go wrong, poison ivy? Luckily...

Ela didn't need a rabies shot (I did have my whits about me enough to get the tag information from the dogs owner), Jeremy found the tent poles, and there was no poison ivy to be seen. Surprisingly everyone was still awake (at 12.30 am), and the fire was still going, when Ela and I returned to the campsite.

The rest of our time at the State Park was spent as hoped, a few minutes at night by the fire with a beer and friends, and a lazy morning with pancakes and camping coffee. I was even able to get in a few minutes of sitting by the fire with the fleece I had brought with me, to pick through for vegetable matter, before everyone woke up in the morning.

By noon Saturday everyone was packed and ready to go, our next stop: Bouckville, NY and the CNY Fiber Festival.

This was my first time to this festival, and I was truly pleased. It was small, as I expected, but it had such a wonderful mix of vendors. The focus this year was spinning, and sure enough in every tent (~7 total) there was a spinning area of wheels and stools and anyone could pop down for a spin (wink).

I'm not yet interested in spinning wheels, as I grow more and more fond of drop spindling, so I was on the look out for spindles. This is the second festival now that I found myself gravitating toward the Spinning Bunny booth. Jim is from West Danby, NY, a retired cabinet-maker he took up wood-turning as a hobby after retiring, and  he took up spinning because he couldn't turn in the house. He is talented at both for sure. His spindles are amazingly balanced, it is obvious that the spindles are made by someone who understands the intricacy of their use. All the different bowl shapes, and variety of exotic woods he uses makes it easy for any one to find a spindle they will enjoy using for years to come. Rosane (pictured), a dear friend of Jim and Marie's, joins them at many of the fiber festivals. She is an expert spinner and is more than happy to demonstrate (and teach) any one who is interested and stops by the Spinning Bunny display.

The highlight of the fiber festival was Prado De Lana, a sheep farm run by Amanda and Alberto Barcenas out of Chester Co, PA. They specialize in Romney and Lincoln pure wool blends. Their yarns are not dyed (though Amanda is considering doing some natural dyes), and mostly worsted spun. OMG, the drape is amazing!!!! Holding their yarn in my hands and just feeling the weight, watching it fall. It was so hard not to buy enough for a drapy hap, scarf or a winter-y pull-over. I look forward to buying more of their yarn in the future and keeping tabs on what they are up to.  I am sure I will write a post in the future just about them, their farm, and how they got to raising rare breed sheep. (A taste: Amanda studied animal science, Alberto studied Agronomy, and they are currently care-taking a gentleman's farm in Chester Co. PA where they raise their sheep).

This is what I love about fiber festivals:

• Everyone their is just as in love with fiber and fiber related activities as I am (and we all love to talk about it). 
• All the interesting people, hearing how they got doing what they are doing. 
• Learning through conversations and demonstrations. 
• So many things to touch and new things to see.
• Being outside, on a beautiful day, in a beautiful setting.
• But most of all,  meeting new people, and making new friends through our shared love of all things woolly.

Friendship Blanket: Swatch No. 1

Our first friendship blanket swatch! Dana and I were wishing for a project we could do together from afar, and we settled on making a swatch blanket. We'll each knit up (or weave, or felt, or crochet, or whatever!) 4" x 4" squares of whatever we feel like, and when we finally get together we'll sew them into a big, cozy, friendship-filled blanket! Details on the first swatch:

Yarn: Dana's handspun, from Malabrigo Nube roving, colorway "Diana". Spindle-spun and chain-plied, ~11 wpi
Pattern: knit from pinhole cast-on center, with 8 yarnover increases every other row (one on each side of the four spine stitches), with a messy-looking Russian bind-off because I apparently forgot how to do it, oops

Crooked Creek Farm and our first fleece...

This is the last week of Betsy being in Ithaca, and since early on in our fiber friendship we have been talking about processing our own fleece, with intentions of doing so together. Watching the days on the calendar approach Betsy's departure, we recognized it was now or never (at least while together). So, last night, Betsy, Karen, myself and our friends Ela and Nilay drove over to Crooked Creek Farm in Brooktondale, NY to get us some fleece and hang with some sheep.

Needless to say, it was a picture perfect evening, couldn't ask for a bluer sky or greener grass (it has been raining all week). The owner, Amy (who works full-time at Cornell veterinary school), together with her husband, have five horses, a mule, a bunch of chickens and ~70 sheep, five of which are rams (cormo, rambouillet, and finn blends). We found out about the farm via the website agrilicious, which gave us a listing of local farms that deal in wool, and we truly believe we couldn't have lucked out any better.

Amy's friend Cassie, from over the hill, also came over to talk wool and spinning with us. Cassie has been spinning wool since she was 12, where as Amy learnt out of necessity 2 years ago (the sheep came first and she had a lot of wool on her hands, classic chicken and egg). It is obvious Amy loves not only her sheep, but also spinning. She brought us inside her home and showed us the huge pile of yarn she had spun from her own wool, and was able to name each sheep and ram that specific yarn originated from. In fact as we are picking out our fleeces to purchase, she would say "Oh, that's Axil, he is so soft and such nice crimp..."

When it was time to pick out our fleece it was overwhelming. Dark, white, grey, more crimp, less crimp, fine, medium. We felt like kids in a candy store, and were overwhelmingly giddy with joy. Running our fingers through the staples, comparing crimp, smelling the lanolin and whatever (wink) else there is trapped in that beautiful wool! I can't wait to spin the 8lbs. I got and go back for more.


Amy has big dreams for when she finally retires (just a few years away), and can spend her time focusing on her herd and her aspirations of building a fiber community collective. A place where fiber lovers can come and use equipment they might not be able to afford on their own to process fleece and produce yarn and other fiber products. If you are in Ithaca or the Finger Lakes and are a fiber/wool/sheep lover Crooked Creek Farm is a must visit!

(Karen gazing over the field at dusk)

(Walking to the back pasture)